Was Burkett threatened?

[Mikimouse]

I think it is a reasonable question. I just finished reading an interview at:http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003249.html#more
and found it quite enlightening. I know that some of this stuff has been posted in the past, but it all seems to come together in the interview. Burkett has been shoved into a corner of sorts, over the years, largely because of his public statements about * and the National Guard shenanigans. It is not beyond possibility that he was used by the RW to distribute these documents to keep himself safe, and to 'innoculate' * against any further investigations. Thoughts?

[Disturbed]

1. He said that..

his son's car was vandalized and a few other things have happened. I read that on LBN. I need to go there to fine that again.

I know this. We are at WAR here in Amerika. The Neo Fascists believe in winning and the ends justify the means. We on the Left need to stop appeasing the Neo Fascists and fight them verbaly, in writing, in the courts and physicaly if it comes down to that.

[Mikimouse]

3. In the interview he talked about trying to get medical ...

coverage from the Guard, and had great difficulty in obtaining it. Now, I had read that at least a year ago, and my first thought was that he could be very dangerous to *. What better way to slime out from underneath the truth about *'s disappearance than to make a mockery out of the one person who is in the best position to present damaging evidence?
I agree, we ARE at war, and it isn't going to get any prettier unless we all collectively come to our senses and realize that we are heading into the most dangerous territory of our nation's existence.

[Pegleg Thd]

2. He seemed very

nervous during the interview with Rather.. Is it possible that someone had told him his pacemaker would be recharged with a stun gun if he told Rather the TRUTH?????:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

[kokomo]

4. I don't think Rather is done with this story

Rather hasn't appeared a bit ruffled, even when accosted by Faux News "journalists" at DFW Airport this weekend when he flew to Texas to interview Lt. Col. Burkett. I think Burkett was set up but is trying to cover for whoever sent him the copies of the memos. I don't think Burkett forged them as he is from the same generation as I am, kind of computer illiterate. He and I both know about the IBM Selectric which I never mastered. I think the forgery was done by some youngster who knows nothing about 1970 technology and probably believes the world never existed before he/she was born.

Wolf Blitzer was quick to paint it as a Kerry dirty trick today, but former Clinton counsel, Jack Quinn, was quick to point out that Republicans could have just easily been the perps, to discredit Democrats, and the "librul" media, especially Rather. Sounds very Rovian to me. So far it may have done the trick, made ALL Bush records suspect, and slimed the opposition, sending a message to the media to lay off Baby Bush. Just as effective, safer, and cheaper than Anthrax. CNN was a bit better than Fox which ran with histrionics all day, a "breaking story" forever. Didn't see anyone from the Democrats or CBS on Fox, only BushCo operatives.

[brentspeak]

11. I think the memo was designed to be exposed as a fake

While looking good enough to fool a careless CBS just long enough for them to rush it onto the tube. After which, "Buckhead", as if on cue, will amazingly "discover" that the memo was a fake...and the rest is history.

[John_H]

19. Burkett is the Key. CBS went / the memos on his word. In other words,

Whoever Duped him knew as soon as they had that CBS was also duped.

[newyawker99]

21. Hi kokomo!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Cheswick2.0]

5. paid off

I think they paid him off to give Rather those memos. I think it was a distraction from the real truth that bush did not serve his time in the TANG.

[Mikimouse]

7. Either that or threatened. Either way though, the result is essentially

the same. I sure would love to see an independent counsel go after this, to look for a money trail or other evidence of tampering by the RW.

[in_cog_ni_to]

20. Did he ever get his medical coverage?

Could he have received a phone call telling him to feed the documents to Rather and THEN his medical care would be covered? :shrug: A KKKRove BRIBE?

[whistle]

6. On CBS news in the interview with Dan Rather, when asked....

...did he deliberately deceive CBS news (I think Rather said producers because Rather was not the contact person with Burkett), Burkett's response was a clear "Oh yeah!". There was also a follow-up question regarding the original source, than the one Burkett provided and Burkett said he had lied about that and would not divulge who or where he got these documents from. That tells me he is covering up for someone or some group. Burkett then said that he had expected CBS to authenticate the documents. Now this was a very sketchy excerpt and I'm sure I have not got it totally correct, but that is the essence of what I heard in that interview. So it tells me that Burkette was somehow deliberately or coercively forced to deceive CBS about the source(s) of the documents and their authenticate and that he is now covering up how the documents came to be in his possession. That throws the whole issue open to who wanted CBS to be duped, why only copies were made available and initially claimed to be from authentic originals and who if anyone Bill Burkett is covering up for. CBS news team fell down on checking their sources, Dan Rather and CBS management trusted their news teams thoroughness to check out the source(s) and I suppose this fellow Burkett now that I've seen him, may have been given more face to face credibility by CBS news from the initial contacts all the way up than he may have deserved. But how can one judge something like that when dealing with an issue like this, hindsight now being 20/20? So, CBS has been stung hard, the neo-cons have hated Rather all the way back to his reporter days in Vietnam and the Nixon White House. Indeed, "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark" (Hamlet).

In spite of this little set-back, our candidate John Kerry really gave one hell of a speech today at NYU exposing Shrub for the total incompetent and fraud that he is. If Kerry can continue hammering these points home about Bush's failures in Iraq, failures in Foreign policy, failures in the economy, failures in curbing corporate fraud, etc. between now and the election, he'll un-nerve Bush and that idiot will hang himself.

[Mikimouse]

9. OK, someone is probably going to offer me a tinfoil...

hat for this, but here goes. In the interview tonight, which I unfortunately missed, you said that Burkett stated that he expected CBS to authenticate the documents. That intrigues me, as I wonder if he was trying to tacitly suggest that CBS could learn more from very carefully examining the doc. for authenticity. If CBS had discovered that the docs were false or forged (prior to broadcasting them), then I have to wonder what Burkett's response would have been. I have to wonder if he would have revealed the original source of the docs at that point, just to publicize the fact that someone, probably from the RW, had attempted to set him up. Perhaps we was hoping that the fact checkers would have a filed day with this stuff? It is only gross conjecture on my part, but it seems that it did not take very long for the RW 'rabid-response' team to get into high gear with it, suggesting that they may have known in advance.

[whistle]

12. Anything is possible, the interview was a snippett and not...

...the entire interview. I would love to watch the whole conversation between Rather and Burkett, or read a transcript of it. Again it is not a deposition, so who knows where Burkett is telling the truth, lying or covering himself by hedging. This is up vs down, in vs out, there vs here vs there:crazy:

[bobbieinok]

8. check out salon's tabletalk whitehouse thread on AWOL

Marty says he has talked to CBS in the past. If they had asked about Burkitt, he would had told them to be careful because WH has slimed him over and over so that no one would believe him.

[Mikimouse]

10. Yes, and that is one of my points as well...

They HAVE slimed him over and over, but he wouldn't go away, and was still a thorn in their collective side. With the nature of the recent interviews, his credibility seems completely shot, and even if he were to come out with original documents now, they would be ignored. We need to find the original source of those damned documents, and now!

[whistle]

13. The original source would have been Col Killian, who is now....

...crossed over to the other-side. If the document question and thus the issue of Shrub's AWOL and string pulling is to be resolved, we need an angel to provide divine direction.:think:

[Mikimouse]

15. I meant the source that Burkett is loathe to reveal...

Who provided him with the documents?

[Disturbed]

14. If Kerry...

can get his msg. across to more than a few hundred people. The Mess(spelled like this on purpsoe) Media is mostly Right Wing and they will milk the docs story until the teat is dry. The Neo Fascists are smiling now because not only has this derailed the real AWOL story but it has set aside real discussion about the failures of the Neo Fascists.

[Mikimouse]

17. No argument there...I think that Kerry has ...

tremendous communications skills and will deliver his message clearly, even above the mad rantings of the * boys and the RW media. The thing that really frosts me is that we all know that * is a sniveling little coward, and most certainly took advantage of every opportunity to keep himself out of harms way, but he has, once again, managed to extricate himself (with lots of help from Poppy'sfriends,no doubt) from the consequences of his own laziness and cowardice. That really burns!

[JDPriestly]

16. Burkett is a patriot, no matter what he is done.

I have no doubt that Burkett is a good man and has meant well, but he is in big trouble. If he or someone close to him forged the documents, he should talk to a lawyer without fear. The lawyer owes him a duty of confidentiality.

Burkett admitted he lied about where he got the documents. There is no excuse for that. Burkett claims that he did not forge the documents. How can we believe him on that if he lied about where he got them. He will be forever branded as a liar unless he tells the truth about where and how he got them.

Burkett has gone this far to fight for what he believes is right. He should not stop now. Yes, he would be taking a big risk by telling the whole truth, but he is a soldier. He has faced more difficult things than this. It is his patriotic duty to tell the whole truth to the American people before the election. We are depending on him to set this straight.

[Mikimouse]

18. I don't know who else may be involved...

In fact, I don't even know if Burkett has a family, though I suspect that he does. If I were in his position, I wouldn't much care about what might happen to me, but I would be very concerned, to the point of sacrificing my own reputation, if I had wife and children who were being tacitly threatened. I agree, he is probably the only one who can clear this up, and I would love to see him do exactly that, for better or worse, just to get it done and over with. We have more pressing issues to deal with in the campaign, as has been pointed out by many other posters. BUT, I would really like to find out what exactly is going on, since it seems to me to be a very complex cover-up of *'s lack of credibility.